The Odd Couple TV series ran from 1970-75 and starred Tony Randall as Felix and Jack Klugman as Oscar:
The first season at any rate was shot on the same set as the movie.
A more concise retelling of Kurosawa's famous 1952 original (by Kazuo Ishiguro) is a perfect vehicle for Bill Nighy.
Helen Scott's production design and sets gorgeously photographed by Jamie Ramsay in the unusual aspect ratio of 1.5:1.
Discussed elsewhere, the behaviour of the kids, and their grossly inappropriate language, is great fun. Matthau loved working with them, would hang out with them between takes and tell them raunchy jokes; thus he was one of them, not the star.
The Bears: Chris Barnes, Erin Blunt, Gary Lee Cavagnaro, Jaime Escobedo, Scott Firestone, George Gonzales, Jackie Earle Haley, Alfred Lutter, Brett Marx, David Pollock, Quinn Smith and Tatum O'Neal.
Music: Bizet's Carmen. On camera: John A Alonzo (I fear our print to be a shade darker than he would have liked).
I first saw it on December 27th 1977, gave it 7/10 and particularly rated Matthau, O'Neal and Alonzo. Tatum thought she was the big star but her performance had to be cajoled out of her.
Written by Guillermo Arriaga, and thus not presented in a strictly linear manner. However it becomes clear that Jones' Mexican buddy Julio Cesar Cedillo has been killed, by border control officer Barry Pepper - it's a revenge tale as Jones kidnaps the cop and forces him to accompany him and the corpse into Mexico to bury him in his home town.
As soon as we meet Pepper he punches a fleeing Mexican woman hard in the face - I was hoping something bad would happen to him in return and pleasingly, it does, for much of the film. He also had a dreadful attitude to his wife January Jones.
It's quite amusing, had me in mind of both The Good the Bad and the Ugly and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Good make-up of the corpse.
Beautifully filmed by Chris Menges. Edited by Roberto Silvi.
With Dwight Yoakam, Melissa Leo, Levon Helm (blind man), Mel Rodriguez.
I'd long wanted to see this - now I have.
Producer Hawkesworth brings his Upstairs Downstairs sensibilities (and filming style) to the BBC, as chef Gemma Jones defies the upper classes for her shot in early twentieth century London.
We seem to have missed the beginning (only the opening episode thankfully) and find herself already having made a good impression with a Major, Michael Culver (Roland's son) and Lord Bryan Coleman, but is pressed into marrying butler Donald Burton so she can be mistressed out to the Prince of Wales, Roger Hammond. That I find a bit much.
Familiar faces in June Brown, John Raply, Doreen Mantle, John Welsh, David Cater, Robert Hardy.
She later starts a hotel, despite her husband trying to ruin her; has a baby, exposes fraudsters and adulterers. Entertaining series.
There's also something insanely catchy about Alexander Faris's theme tune.
In Brother's Keeper (Marteinn Thorisson) you begin to wonder whether Paulette Randall has ever directed actors before, in badly staged and acted story involving underground boxing, which seems fairly unbelievable - the distancing effect of Covid is quite clearly felt here. Lorraine Ashbourne holds her own. Simone (Genesis Lynea) is the new pathologist. And it's her GF who's investigating, Danielle Henry.
Then for the finale, Matters of Life and Death, written by Martin Crompton, a murder is discovered in Nikki's pathology class - a good start. Then looks at relationships. Simone gets Jack a date. Nikki most unwisely has a relationship with a student. (What was she thinking?) Then Nikki kisses Jack... but then he hears she's had the affair and goes all bitter.. There's even a rather sweet relationship between Jack and care home resident Sian Phillips.
Good cast: Nicholas Woodeson, India Eva Rae, Steven Wight returning as the DS. And lots of rain.
Richie Andrusco is the seven year old who - believing he has shot his brother Richard Brewster - wanders off on his own to Coney Island,
I wondered if the camera was hidden, or they just get away with a lot because it's always pointing down, at small boy height. Engel is credited as cameraman, it was carried at waist height and you looked down into the viewfinder; Orkin edited with Lester Troob. Eddy Manson's score uses the harmonica imaginatively. It was apparently shot silent.
Allegedly an influence of the French New Wave. However it's not referred to in my de Baecque and Toubiana Truffaut biography, not the director's own 'Films of My Life' nor in the pages of the collected Cahiers du Cinéma Vol.1. But I find this quotation on TCM, authored by Sean Axmaker in 2009, ""Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn't been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with his fine movie, Little Fugitive" - Francois Truffaut - though no source is given. I'll have to investigate.
It's very good. Won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was Oscar nominated. I'd never heard of it before.
Perhaps not quite in the same league as 7th Heaven but another strong slice of romantic drama from Borzage again teaming Janet Gaynor with Charles Farrell. Set in Napoli it has a seriously gripping beginning in which Angela needs money for her mum's prescription, clumsily attempts to solicit a man, steals and is immediately caught and sent to prison, makes a plucky escape, finds her mum dead, and then is protected by a travelling circus who hide her from the police in the drum that has been damaged in scene one! Phew!
And then she meets artist Farrell.
Has great moments like the policeman who will allow Gaynor one last hour with him. or the prostitute who tries to seduce him, and the very powerful ending where the lovers reunite and he tries to kill her...
Gaynor is brilliant again. Her last appearance was in The Love Boat in 1981! Other notable films: The Young in Heart, A Star Is Born (the original) and Lucky Star, another Borzage-Farrell collaboration from 1929.
All glowingly shot by Ernest Palmer again, with Paul Ivano, impressive sets by Harry Oliver.
Say Nothing.
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
One Battle After Another. Far fuckin' out, brother!
Bird (Andrea Arnold)
Hamnet (and, come to that, Hamlet)
7th Heaven
There's one thing that I will declare - this film wouldn't be as good without Elmer Bernstein's brilliant score. Also I noticed future Clint Eastwood collaborator Henry Bumstead is the art director.
Gregory Peck was apparently in real life just like Atticus.
Who, by the way, seems to have a good relationship with his neighbour Maudie (Rosemary Murphy), who seems also to be single. They'd make a good couple.
Having just stayed in the Via Veneto is was most timely to enjoy this as it was partly filmed in and around the Hotel Excelsior; and also in Trastevere and the Spanish Steps.
Most enjoyable, overheated melodrama though we can't see what Kirk Douglas ever saw in Cyd Charisse - she's awful.
Irwin Shaw novel adapted by Charles Schnee; also The Bad and the Beautiful, Red River, They Live By Night. Photographed by Milton Krasner in CinemaScope.
A stunningly romantic drama, set in Paris in pre-WWI, based on a play by Austin Strong, adapted by Benjamin Glazer (Katherine Hilliker and HH Caldwell are credited as 'editors' and title writers). That a film can retain such power over almost a hundred years is impressive indeed. And I have to attribute its success in part to Janet Gaynor, who is just great as the depressed and bullied sister of Gladys Brockwell, a monstrous drunk - the scene where the sister flees and is beaten whilst the camera tracks back into the street is incredible. Gaynor also won the Oscar.
Enter sewer worker Charles Farrell ("I am a remarkable fellow!") who grudgingly and reluctantly gets involved and transforms her life.
Memorable dialogue (OK, titles) - when he kisses her - "I didn't mean it. Don't think you can stay."
Full of so many good moments I don't want to list them for fear of spoiling my next viewing, but I was variously in tears, laughing out loud and on the edge of my seat. The war scenes are as strong as anything in The Big Parade. It's great to finally catch up with these great classics and find out how terribly good they are.
Great synchronized score and effects - innovative mix of soundtracks between domesticity and war, well edited (by Barney Wolf). Borzage won Oscar as Best Director for his masterpiece.
Photographed by Ernest Palmer and Joe Valentine in 1.2:1.
With Albert Gran, David Butler (fellow street cleaner), Marie Mosquini, Emil Chautard, Ben Bard, George E Stone (the 'Rat').
I have to rethink things: the first Golden Age of Hollywood was the twenties. It's a bit like watching an opera - 'La Boheme' or something - without the singing.
Reputations. Pete Hambly. They seem to have introduced a load of new writers recently - who are all these people and where are the good old ones like Prager, Crompton, Appleton & Keeble and Whitmore?
Murder in hospital, involving Karen Bryson (The Split), Nicholas Farrell. Adam has lied on his CV - he's for the boot.
Did they film these in lockdown? Let's ask Emilia Fox:
"We were a week away from filming Series 24 when lockdown happened so there was a massive amount of disappointment and sadness not to be starting filming. When we were allowed to start up again, we felt very grateful. Silent Witness has always had a great loyalty from crew and production, so it was a lovely feeling to be able to work and be back together again.
The story lines had to adapt as we were filming under Covid restrictions, the writers tackled this by containing us in certain locations, as we couldn’t do as much filming around London. This series feels more about the conversation, characters, and cases."
Redemption. Lena Rae. Prison episode brings back characters from old story, Shadows (the University shooting one). Kevin Doyle, Kevin Eldon, Elliott Tittensor reprising his role as the killer.
Bad Love. Susan Everett. Jack has a niece, who's deaf. New pathologist Adam appears, Jason Wong - he knows sign language. Convenient, eh? Jack Deam and Patrick Baladi are familiar faces.
Henry James' novel Washington Square inspired a play by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, which they adapted well for the screen: it doesn't feel play-like.
Father doctor Ralph Richardson considers his daughter a disappointment; when she falls for good looking but poor Montgomery Clift he shuts it down. But she fights for him...
Olivia de Havilland's transformation from lovesick sap to hardened father's daughter is remarkable - she won the Oscar, as did Aaron Copland's score and the art direction and costume design.
Miriam Hopkins is fine as the giddy aunt under Wyler's strict direction. With Vanessa Brown as the faithful maid.
Wyler's love of deep focus isn't too in evidence in Leo Tover's photography. (Gregg Toland had died in 1948, aged only 44 - heart attack brought on by heavy drinking.) It was made at Paramount.
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Am I right in saying that in this Arizona set film featuring big crowd scenes I saw not one black face? It seemed like it. Which is quite shocking. Also weren’t a high proportion of the original cowboys black? I should pay more attention next time.
But yes, this is good. McQueen is the aging rodeo star whose dad Robert Preston is still riding too, and going from one money-making venture to another, well distanced from former wife Ida Lupino; brother Joe Don Baker is making millions in real estate. McQueen circles the family warily and knowingly in the first of his two collaborations with Peckinpah. Ben Johnson is the promoter.
And he partakes in a rodeo that's come to his home town, anxious to get the better of a particularly viscous bull. Peckinpah and editors Frank Santillo and Robert Wolfe and DP Lucien Ballard make the most of intercutting action with lots and lots of footage of spectators, and in using editing on zooms interestingly. The occasional split screen is not as successful (I don't think it's ever been used that well).
Has a sweet ending. Written by Jeb Rosebrook. It's not so much about the passing of the old west (rodeos are even now still a big thing) but what happens to the people as they age (The Wild Bunch and Guns in the Afternoon are about this too). And about the Individual, the Loner. We like him at once as he buys apples for his horse. Moment where he's threatened by a bulldozer is memorable.
I used to have a book about Sam Peckinpah, I think. There are so many now. I read that Ida Lupino found him living in a shack and gave him a job on her TV show; he repaid the favour by casting her here.
Researching McQueen somehow led me to John Ford's Hurricane, which Maltin rates ***1/2.
What do you expect - it's the season finale. Nerve gas is the bad guy and suspects drop like flies - including a friendly DS (Adelle Leonce), then Jack himself. But Martin Crompton's screenplay for The Greater Good hides even worse to come, one of those end of season shock deaths. Goodbye Richard Lintern, yea though fly his kite did he.
With William Ash (Burn It, Clocking Off), Clare Higgins, Ben Bailey Smith, Richard Durden (Jack's dad).
I found some of David Head's editing a bit questionable.
A body is found in a concrete pillar - turns out to be connected to girl who is cryogenically frozen. Hope, by Lena Rae, is thus something of a tall story and quite difficult to follow. In parallel Clarisse is torn when her mum has cancer and she doesn't know what to do.
Jemma Redgrave gruffly investigates. Anastasie Hille is up to something.
Close to Home. Ed Whitmore. Young boy found in Hertfordshire - all the locals assume it's paedo Andre Flynn, but of course as anyone who's seen this show before knows it's never the obvious suspect (even though, true to form, he does try and run away). Robert Pugh his violent dad tries to protect him.
No it's not until well into part 2 we discover who it is. With Tom Goodman-Hill (Humans).
As soon as you see the name Tim Prager you know what you're about to watch is hard hitting and socially topical. Seven Times - directed by Kate Saxon - is no exception, dealing with domestic abuse against women. Artfully woven into this is Nikki's own past in which her own mother suffered the abuse; and accordingly she bonds with a young witness, who in the shattering final line says to Nikki 'Tell me it won't happen to me'.
In a neat sub-plot, Thomas is somehow involved in a men only club of cunts and is expected to try to help the reputation of a judge who's assaulted a young woman.
Michael Maloney is the judge. Garry Dobson as disabled detective adds tang. Slightly bonkers ending though lets it down - has the mother gone psycho?
A private plane crashes. Is someone trying to encourage suicide? Deadhead was written by Graham Mitchell.
Privileged but mixed up kid Kirsten Dunst gets herself involved with straight and hard-working Latino Jay Hernandez. And that's it, really, but it's engaging and well done. Written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi.
Kirsten Dunst is good as the messed up kid (she would have been about 19). With Bruce Davison (dad), Taryn Manning (wild friend), Lucinda Jenney (step mom).
Notes: Hernandez's mother isn't at all polite to Dunst. He pretty much abandons her at family party. She's lovely getting him his first flight. When she wants to have sex with him and her father's outside her window it's pretty gross.
Actually didn't mind the music soundtrack.
"That's your mother isn't it?"
"Yeah. She was in bed asleep, I thought. So I went downstairs and I stayed real quiet all afternoon so I wouldn't disturb her. And then I went back up and she was still lying there."
Shane Hurlbut photographed, Melissa Kent edited.
Nikki's prognosis is challenged in court - turns out the evidence has been fiddled with - she's lost her heart. Betrayal was written by Michael Crompton and Virginia Gilbert.
Also a team of researchers are experimenting on themselves with perilous results. Clarissa tangles with pharmaceutical boss Art Malik.
And Dirvla Kirwan is having naughties with Thomas.
Made in the Autumn of 1941 and released after Pearl Harbor in the New Year. Minor criminal 'Gloves' Humphrey Bogart discovers filthy Nazis at work in Manhattan in this jocular crime drama, produced by Hal Wallis and featuring pre-Casablanca Conrad Veidt and Peter Lorre, who met his wife-to-be Kaaren Verne on the picture. (It didn't last.)
Bogart's buddies William Demarest and Frank McHugh provide laughs. It's a cracking cast, actually, also with Jane Darwell, Judith Anderson, Jackie Gleason, Phil Silvers, Barton MacLane and Edward Brophy. And Sam McDaniel.
Written by Leonard Spigelgass and Edwin Gilbert. Photographed by Sid Hickox. Music by Adolph Deutsch (actually born in London). Edited by Rudi Fehr (German-Jewish; in the USA from the mid-thirties, became head of post-production at Warner Bros in the fifties.)
Interesting though to hear Dachau being referenced so early on.
Bogie's fights are tough and difficult and awkward, which makes a nice change.
Abraham Orovitz wanted to be an actor and changed his name to Vincent Sherman. He won a few small roles in the thirties (acted alongside Richard Quine, funnily enough) then became a writer before moving up to director. He had affairs with Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Rita Hayworth. Was greylisted in the fifties as a result of HUAC investigation, came back as a TV director. Other notable films: Mr Skeffington (interesting, considering its subject matter), Old Acquaintance.
Opens with a terrible song - not the way to do a war film. Robert Mitchum is the war correspondent who finally has to pick up a gun, and decides that the reason for war is that 'men love killing'. I see.
Peter Falk is a crazy soldier. Robert Ryan, Arthur Kennedy, Reni Santoni (who would get stoned with Mitchum), Earl Holliman; didn't recognise Giancarlo Giannini.
The Italian (Dino de Laurentiis) production was a mess, with script changes being made up to and during filming. It was at least photographed by Giuseppe ('Peppino' ) Rotunno.
Meet yuppie lawyers Jack Davenport, Amita Dhiri, Andrew Lincoln, Daniela Nardini and Jason Hughes.
Davenport alienates everyone by getting involved with druggie bulimic model Charlotte Bicknell; he can't see that she's vile.
Shot in that same verité style as Cops with the camera close on people's faces. Interesting style with the camera (not hand held, I thought - turns out it was) whipping to and fro to actors' faces, or cutting energetically between shots / takes (more than one camera rolling?)
With Luisa Bradshaw-White (Hughes' bubbly cousin), Paul Copley (Lincoln's dad), David Mallinson (senior solicitor), Steve John Shepherd (clerk), Ramon Tikaram, Mark Lewis Jones.
Written with Maggie O'Farrell, based on her novel. And an interesting change of pace for Zhao, whose previous two films were very naturalistic; a departure also in that she's no longer (working) with her DP/ partner Joshua James Richards. This is shot in the lowest light imaginable by Lukasz Zal, who we know from Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War and Ida, and The Zone of Interest. (Interestingly he wasn't nominated for any awards for this - perhaps it was too dark. Weirdly the clips shown in the production video look sharper than in the film itself.)
Max Richter provides the score (L'Amica Geniale, Taboo, Miss Sloane, The Lunchbox). Beautifully designed by Fiona Cromble. Edited by Zhao and Affonso Goncalves
Looking at the production video is was indeed a happy set, with actors dancing between emotional scenes, Zhao acting as stand-in mother to young cast - Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Olivia Lynes and Jacobi Jupe - who's amazing. As is Jessie Buckley, who found under Zhao's direction she was capable of even more than she thought possible - and won all the awards.
With Paul Mescal, Emily Mortimer, David Wilmot, Joe Alwyn, Noah Jupe (Hamlet, brother of Jacobi).
"The rest is silence."
The Yes Minister writer didn't write this one - that was Dale Launer, who sets up Ralph Macchio and Mitchell Whitfield for murder in Georgia, and get novice attorney Joe Pesci to defend them... with the invaluable support of Marisa Tomei, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. (She beat Judy Davis in Husbands and Wives, Joan Plowright in Enchanted April, Vanessa Redgrave in Howard's End and Miranda Richardson in Damage.)
Courtroom scenes where Pesci comes into his own, winning appreciation of Judge Fred Gwynne, are the most fun.
With Austin Pendleton, Lane Smith. Bruce McGill, Maury Chaykin.
Photographed by Peter Deming and edited by Lou's son Tony Lombardo.
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| "Do you two know each other?" |
An Irishman's wife is blown up in a car bomb. He reacts suspiciously, either like he knows someone is after him, or he did it himself. Whilst the Troubles are at the heart of it, the murderer is not who you expect. (In fact I've forgotten who it was now already.) It all brings up the past of young Jack in Belfast.
The man Ian McElhinney gets his son Josef Davies involved - what a bastard!
Sean Campion (chauffeur), Richard Durden, Silas Carson, Gary Lilburn. Ray Fearon investigates.
It's called Deathmaker and Marteinn Thorisson wrote it. Directed by Bill's daughter Mary Nighy.
To Brighton, To Brighton. Involving the discovery of highly decorated Japanese tattooed body parts in said coastal town. Whilst we seem to be presented with the culprit from the off, the explanation is of course much more complex. Michael Crompton is the writer.
There's a subplot about children as Nikki thinks she might be pregnant.
Made me wonder whether 'The Colourful Corpse' has ever been used as a title (book or film). Amazingly, it seems not.
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| Head finally reunited with body |
Storyline involving man tied up in boat as somewhat over-stretched.
A strange hybrid, based on two biographical books, peppered with talking heads of friends, photos and film clips, but largely a dramatized TV movie, not very well written by Elizabeth Egloff, but with Peter getting the most out of his actors and material.
Natalie is played by Justine Waddell -
- and by Elizabeth Rice (Mad Men) as a teenager -
- and Grace Fulton as a kid. Here she is with the villain of the piece, her mother (Alice Krige) -
According to Lana Wood's biography 'Little Sister' the star who raped her was Kirk Douglas. She also thought her death mysterious.
Likely there's still some Wood back catalogue worth exploring, for example Love With the Proper Stranger (1963 Steve McQueen), The Star (1952 Bette Davis), The Blue Veil (1951 Jane Wyman), The Jackpot (1950 James Stewart), No Sad Songs For Me (1950 Margaret Sullavan) and Driftwood (1947 Walter Brennan).
